My wife and I were driving home from the Adirondacks on the NY Thruway yesterday and saw a horrific accident as it happened, about 50 feet in front of our car! I saw the car drifting to the right, and thought, "oh, he'll steer back", but car just continued to the right, hit the guiderail at the end, crushed the rail all the way to the concrete barriers that are ironically there to protect the toll apparatus! The driver must of fallen asleep at the wheel, or "died suddenly". Debris flew out into the road, and I was glad that we were in the left lane, because a large piece of the guiderail flew into the right lane. We stopped just ahead, called 911, and I started to go back to help, when another vehicle stopped, where a passenger was an EMT. He ran back to the scene. I saw many people at the scene, and decided I wouldn't be any help. We left, and as we left, the car burst into flames! Based on the severity of the crash (we could see that the front of the car was TOTALLY crushed in), we wondered if the passenger(s) could be extracted before the flames! It was the worst car accident I have ever seen happen!
Now here is where it get's weird. I searched online yesterday and couldn't find a news item about it. I still couldn't today, but found where someone mentioned it on Reddit. So the question is, are details being withheld for a reason? (or am I just too conspiracy-minded :) ) I can't recall anything about the vehicle other than it was a car.
The "burst into flames" part is weird.
Cars (regular, gas-powered cars) don't generally burst into flames upon collisions.
There was even a MythBusters episode to demonstrate this because they wanted to bust the myth due to Hollywood scenes in movies.
Maybe it was EV.
But ... having said that, I have seen 2 different situations where vehicles were on the side of the road and the engine compartments were in massive fiery flames.
Both were older SUV's, so not EV's.
Neither looked like they were in accidents -- just looked like they pulled over (probably due to the fires).
What can cause fire to burst out like that?
A fuel line leak spraying onto the hot exhaust manifold can ignite from the heat.
I was in a Lanscaping truck that burst into flames under the engine compartment, while we were driving.
We pulled over and jumped out of the truck with little time to spare. The bed of the truck had old wooden sidewalls and was completely loaded with grass clippings.
Within a minute or so the entire truck was engulfed in 20-foot flames.
Edit: And yes, just like in the MythBusters episode, the fuel tank did not explode, it just added fuel to the fire, igniting the load of grass in the truck bed.
The fuel seals don’t like ethanol. They are better now than before.